Page 23 of The Casualty of Us
“Okay,” I finish off quietly, reminding both him and myself. “It’s nothing, though…he just likes to tease me by flirting, and it’s entertaining, so I leave him be.”
He pauses, eyes searching mine in the darkness before giving voice to the doubt I can see there. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I nod, reaching for his hand. “I’m sure.”
I give it a squeeze and close my eyes on the day, repeating the words to myself all the way through falling asleep until I’m seeing them in my dreams. Making sure that it seeps into my subconscious just how sure I am.
Because the thing is…Ollie gave up a lot to come here with me. He’d never say it. Never expect anything in return for it or be anywhere else.
But it doesn’t change the knowledge I have of that fact either.
So I wait until the next day when I’m hiding out in the library to look up a video on how to do my own tie. Not paying the least bit of attention to the disappointment in Hayes’s eyes when I show up with it already done on Monday.
Still accepting the tea he has waiting for me like it’s nothing.
Chapter Six
OPHELIA - OCTOBER 2012
The restof August and September pass with everyone falling into a rhythm together. Ollie and Hayes start up football even though they both moan about being second-string and third-string respectively. One as his lifelong dream of being a college quarterback, and the other as a dimpled wide receiver who doesn’t seem to care quite as much. Marley quickly becomes busy with training for the soccer season to start up after winter break, but we make sure to do dinner together most nights in our dorm still. On the nights she’s busy, I typically end up in the guys’ dorm, sometimes staying the night after we eat or watching a movie, but I still make sure to not sleep over more than a couple times a week.
And sometimes, I even skip a week here and there.
Everything about the school, from its rigorous academics to its picturesque scenery, makes it easier for panic to slide away from me some.
My mom would be proud, I think, if she knew about it all, that is, but our brief conversations mainly center around my classes and her bugging me for details about our group of friends.
Holden and I end up together more often than not when the others are busy with their sports, and I quickly decide that he’s going to be my marshmallow. It takes a bit longer for him to warm up to me, but after about our third trip to the library and my exemplary literary names joke about us…he quickly shows me that soft, gooey center. He tells me that he’s one of ten scholarship students the school admits and that his mom named him Holden before she bailed when he was about three, leaving him living in rural Virginia with a dad who doesn’t sound too bad all around, besides maybe liking to unwind from his day by drinking a bit too much.
Our platonic friendship helps me out in more ways than one, though. It seems to puzzle Hayes enough to give him pause when it comes to the flirting and eases some of the worry on Ollie’s face.
Two birds with one stone, I guess.
It’s on one of these days when Holden and I are tucked away on the second floor of the library at a table we found in the back corner that we’re interrupted.
“I’m fucking dead,” Ollie gasps, making me look up in time to catch him and Hayes dripping sweat and collapsing across from me at the study table. “I think Coach is determined to kill me.”
I wrinkle my nose at his griping and groaning as they lean back in the chairs. “You stink.”
“I know,” Ollie snorts. “But this is important.” He looks around, taking in the ceiling-high shelves with the occasional chandelier hanging beside them and the fireplace in front of our study table. “Hey, this place is pretty nice.”
The increasingly surprised expression on his face makes me frown. “I’m really going to have to crush Mom’s Voltaire dreams when we get home.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head as Holden chokes on a laugh beside me. “What’s so important?”
“The Ruins.”
I glance over at Hayes’s answer, catching the mischief in his eyes with it. “And what exactly are the Ruins?”
“Apparently.”— he leans closer to me across the table—“there’s an old church back in the woods that the upperclassmen use to party at instead of having to trek all the way to the nearest town.”
“And let me guess.” I look between the two of them. “You two want to go.”
“Yeah.” Ollie nods seriously. “Problem is it’s invite-only.”
“Count me out of this,” Holden mumbles.
